Ann Zoidis, M.S.
Cetos Director, Principle Investigator Humpback Whale Studies, Research Projects Manager
Ann Zoidis (M.S. Physiology and Behavioral Biology) is the Director and Founder of Cetos Research Organization (Cetos). Ann has over 38 years of experience as a scientist, field researcher, and wildlife biologist and has a specialty in marine mammal research. She has project experience with terrestrial wildlife, bird species, and sea turtles also however for the last 4 decades, Ann has been heavily involved in research, surveys, studies, and impact assessments on marine mammals. Ann spent much of her childhood growing up in Greece where her father was born, swimming in the Mediterranean and commonly encountering marine wildlife in a time when marine life was prolific in the Sea. Seeing dolphins and sea turtles regularly was a start to her
underwater marine life interests. She is indebted to Tom Norris for her first marine mammal research assistant position. Tom brought Ann to Kauai to be his research assistant for his master’s thesis project after one introductory phone call in 1992. She and Tom spent almost 5 months day after day studying, recording, and listening to humpback whale song from a small 15’ inflatable in what was, looking back, an idyllic time of productive work, good beach & sand & surf time, and quiet island living in the early days of marine mammal studies on Hawaii. And, which turned into a lifetime of a solid & caring friendship alongside shared research efforts for Tom and Ann. Their partnership and friendship continued until 2020 when Tom, sadly passed. He left us too soon. Strong friendships among the small group of core Cetos scientists is an attribute of our non-profit and part what Ann envisioned for her work when she started Cetos. Dedicated scientific research coupled with long lasting friendships are our basis. In 2003, after years of working on many studies under other scientists, the idea to get her own marine mammal research permit was proposed to Ann by several senior marine mammal colleagues she knew, and so she did. Once her MMPA permit was in hand, Cetos Research Organization was born shortly afterwards. The first project Ann started with was her own underwater humpback whale research in Maui (&other islands of Hawaii) in 2004. Fluke photos were taken, underwater acoustics were recorded on competitive groups, adult pairs, and on mothers and calves resulting in the first ever publication on calf social calls. Most of the 20 Hawaiian research seasons Cetos has completed occurred in Lahaina where Ann would go with her team most winters. It tore at our hearts to see the harbor and the town burn and we hope for its recovery for the locals and our friends who live there.
In addition to her academic and research pursuits and long-term study on humpback research in Hawaii, Ann is an environmental consultant for Tetra Tech managing projects and conducting NEPA impact analyses. Over the years, Cetos has conducted or is currently engaged in projects from vessel, shore, and aerial platforms including line transect surveys for the U.S. Navy in Hawaii on 3 separate studies (all of which resulted in publications and new findings), and Cetos expanded into vaquita work in Mexico (with Dr. Tom Jefferson), Cetos is conducting permitted research on fin and humpback whales in Maine where Ann is a Research Associate of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor and Principal Investigator of large whale studies in a cooperative arrangement with Allied Whale. Plus more recently Cetos supports a multi-year line transect aerial survey in the NY Bight for NY State which is a continuing Tetra Tech study Ann manages. Cetos provides the permit for large whale photography. Scientific endeavors are important to Ann. They have been an governing factor throughout in her career.
Cetos remains a dynamic organization born out a strong mission statement connecting marine wildlife conservation, scientific data collection and publication, management policy contributions, all fomented by a spirit of collaboration between long time colleagues and friends many of whom have worked together for decades.
Kate Lomac-MacNair, Ph.D.
Assistant Director & Senior Scientist
Kate’s passion for cetacean research started when she studied marine mammals in Costa Rica, while completing her B.S. in Environmental Science (Union Institute & University) with a focus in Cetacean Biology in 2006. She completed her M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy at Johns Hopkins University in 2015, with her thesis focusing on blue whale behavior. Kate completed her Ph.D. in 2022 at the University of Algarve in Faro, Portugal in the Marine Ecology program, focusing on Arctic marine mammal distribution and behavior. Kate has over 20 years of experience as a biologist specializing in marine science, marine mammal research, marine mammal monitoring and mitigation, field project management, and marine survey design. She has managed field surveys and data collection projects from land, air, vessel, and in-water diving studies on marine mammals, sea turtles, birds/seabirds, and coral. She has widespread experience as a marine scientist and project manager during marine mammal, coral, and sea turtle surveys in the South Pacific including Hawaii and Micronesia (Northern Mariana Islands and Yap). Kate began working with Cetos in 2008 and has participated in the 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017, and 2020 Hawaii field seasons. In between those seasons she contributed to our publications, conference presentation work, fundraising efforts, and more. Working as both a data collector/processor and an underwater videographer in the field, she assists in data analysis, paper writing and other technical aspects of Cetos research.
Andy Day, B.S.
Senior Scientist & Cetos Scientific Advisory Board
Andy Day (B.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Biology) has been a field biologist and research scientist for over 30 years, throughout the US and internationally. After getting his Bachelors Degree from the University of Georgia in 1984, he began working on field biology projects. He has a broad knowledge of ecosystem ecology, natural history, behavioral biology, disturbance studies, avian studies, fish habitat assessment, endangered species, and marine mammal studies. Andy has many skills including being a certified boat operator, a professional wildlife photographer, an expert diver, and a veteran field biologist. Much of Andy’s work has been on seabird or terrestrial bird research. In fact, he currently is a director of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Swallow-tailed Kite Monitoring program which he has assisted with for many years. In addition, Andy has worked on numerous marine mammal projects nationally and worldwide. Andy is on the Cetos scientific advisory board and assists in many of the decisions involving our projects. He has been part of Cetos’s research since our inception. His insight and perspective have been instrumental in the development and work of Cetos from the beginning and his technical expertise is invaluable. A short list of his skills that support Cetos include his work as an acoustic tech, his expertise with humpback whale behavior, his knowledge of the local Hawaiian waters, his keen observer and ID skills, boat handling and survey skills, and more, all of which supports and enhances our research.
Tom Norris, M.S.†
(formerly) Senior Scientist, Principle Investigator Offshore Surveys and Acoustic Research, Cetos Scientific Advisory Board
Our dearest friend, Cetos Senior Member from our founding, and long-time colleague Thomas F. Norris (Tom or Tommy) passed away in 2020 at 55 after a short and painful bout with pancreatic cancer. We continue our work in his memory and with all that he taught us over many years and on numerous projects and studies. His influence on the Cetos team members remains instrumental in our research efforts and his friendship lives in our hearts.
Tom Norris (M.S. Marine Sciences) was the director of Bio-Waves, the marine environmental bioacoustics company he started. After many decades of working together as peers, Ann started Cetos, Tom started Bio-Waves, and through their organizations they continued to collaborate on projects. Tom had well over 35 years of experience specializing in marine vertebrate ecology and behavioral biology, specializing in marine bioacoustics. Among other things he was dedicated to the development of new technologies to study acoustics in large marine animals. Since the first days of Cetos, Tom was one of our senior scientists and a member of the scientific advisory board providing insight, skills, knowledge, thoughtful study discussions as well as humor and amusement to our field efforts ranging from locations in Hawaii, Maine, the Mariana Islands, California, Florida, Alaska, and Society of Marine Mammalogy conferences all over the world. Ann started with Tom on his Tom’s master’s thesis work on Kauai which led to both Hawaii and CA-based ATOC projects in the 90s. They were both on USS Winston Churchill shock trials in FL, and Tom came to the rocky offshore island Mount Desert Rock in Maine (where he narrowly missed the tide and had to wait hours before Ann could bring him ashore) to support research Ann was participating in there. Tom’s caring touched everyone at Cetos. His friendship extended to so many of us who knew him well. He supported Cetos research projects in countless ways, led our acoustic-visual survey project off Kauai, teamed up on killer whale research in the San Jaun islands, and engineered the idea for the development of our low cost GPS tag fitness watch study which was published in 2024 and dedicated to his memory. Shortly after he passed Ann co-chaired a session honoring him at the 2021 Acoustic Society of America meeting on his birthday. We can’t say enough about Tom. He always wanted to learn and grow, he cared about others and held close friendships for decades, was humble, and was smart. He was the first to deduce from his MS work that humpback whale song was in fact, rhythm-based communication. He brought his ineffable charm, goofy spirited surfing-loving self and all-around good egg personality to our projects and our lives. He was a self-proclaimed student of Dalai Lama teachings and would often share reflections he was reading on the multiple calls each week he and Ann had. They were long time friends, avowed “BFFs” (best friends forever, he actually saved her life once). It’s important to say that Tom’s contributions and publications reached well beyond his Cetos involvement. He had decades of work as a key marine mammal scientist for many agencies, entities, companies, universities, etc. He was dedicated to helping people in their careers and quite often took new students or up and coming scientists under his wing to help them in their studies. As his wife Danielle has said, he built his life around his love of the ocean, and of surfing. When he wasn’t at sea, he was usually in the water surfing or thinking about surfing.
Thomas A. Jefferson, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist & Cetos Scientific Advisory Board
Tom Jefferson (Ph.D. Wildlife and Fisheries Science) has been studying marine mammals since 1983, when he was an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His Master’s degree is from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and his Ph.D. is from Texas A&M University. He is currently a Visiting Scientist as the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries.
Tom’s main interests are the development of marine mammal identification aids, and investigating the systematics and population ecology of the more poorly-known species of dolphins and porpoises. Essentially all of his work for the past 16 years has been related to conservation and management of marine mammals threatened by human activities. Since 1995, he has been working extensively in Southeast Asia, and has traveled widely in the region. His current primary research focuses on the conservation biology of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin and finless porpoise populations in Hong Kong and surrounding waters, as well as the population biology of bottlenose dolphins in California. He is also working on other projects looking at the systematics and ecology of these species throughout their ranges.
In addition, Tom is involved in many side projects, including those on the taxonomy and population ecology of tropical dolphins (Delphinus and Stenella). With co-authors, Marc Webber and Robert Pitman, he has published a comprehensive identification guide to the marine mammals of the world (published by Academic Press in 2008). He has published over 100 scientific papers and books, and has attended many meetings and workshops as an invited expert. He has also spent many months at sea on fishing boats and research vessels in various parts of the world.
Tom’s outside interests include mountain biking, hiking, drums and percussion, outdoor photography, and wildlands preservation. He is married and lives in San Diego. A member of the Cetos Scientific Advisory Board, Tom has participated in a number of Cetos research projects and is our Principle lead on all the Vaquita work.
Maren Anderson, B.A.
Research Scientist
Maren Anderson began her love of Marine Science in high school when she was certified to SCUBA dive in Belize. Since then, her passion has continued in her studies and her work. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of Colorado at Boulder, in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a focus in Tropical Marine Ecology in 2007. During her studies, she performed health assessments of coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific Oceans. Upon graduation, she worked with coral and marine ecosystem conservation at Disney World’s Living Seas exhibit as an aquarist, diver and marine mammal research assistant. She assisted in cognitive research of Atlantic bottlenose dolphin as well as the rehabilitation of West Indian manatees. Maren joined Cetos Research in 2012 as a research assistant for the Humpback Behavior Project focusing on the interactions between mother and calf pairs. She works as both a data collector/processor and an underwater videographer in the field. Maren has participated in vessel- and land-based visual and acoustic towed array surveys, assessing the abundance, density and distribution of marine mammals. These included locations such as Hawaii, the Mariana Islands, and the California coast, where she has studied pilot whales, spinner and bottlenose dolphins, Risso’s dolphins, beaked whales, harbor porpoise, California sea lions and harbor seals. She has served as visual observer and assistant acoustics team member on these surveys. On land, Maren serves as a research assistant and consultant for various government agencies in managing marine resources, specifically in marine mammals. sea turtles, and coral communities. Maren additionally works on developing curriculum for PreK-12 science programs across the country. She is currently the Upper School Director at the Blake School in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Natasha Pastor, M.S.
Research Scientist & Data Manager
From a simple background working her family farm in New Hampshire, Natasha has always loved the natural world and the creatures who dwell within it. Her love of the marine environment was displayed by her high school senior thesis in 2008 where she mapped humpback whale sightings using GIS software. Natasha continued to expand her horizons after high school, pursuing and graduating with her Bachelor of Science in Biology with a Minor in Chemistry from Franklin Pierce University (Rindge, NH) in 2013. After graduating, Natasha took time to find a Masters program that would allow her to fully explore her love of the marine environment and in 2017, Natasha enrolled at the College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, Maine) under the direction of Dr. Sean Todd. Her thesis work consisted of analyzing stable isotope signatures of skin samples from local baleen whales and their likely prey in the northern Gulf of Maine while also comparing the current signatures with historic signatures to assess whether or not any changes had occurred between two distinct time periods.
Natasha became a team member of the Allied Whale Stranding Organization, assisting in live stranding events, necropsies, and public relations. Natasha also had the privilege of becoming acquainted with Cetos Director (and principal investigator of NMFS research permit 20951 and 26594) Ann Zoidis. Ann appointed Natasha as her data manager and under Ann’s direction, Natasha has assisted with organizing Cetos fluke images, hard drive organization, data QAQC and organization, data collection and reporting, permit reporting, sample transfers, data sharing and release, and has been listed as a permit Co-Investigator and functions as field lead for permit work conducted in the Northern Gulf of Maine. When not involved in research efforts, Natasha works as a Protected Species Observer, further providing her with experience and knowledge regarding marine mammal conservation and management.